The Original Mountain Marathon
A Wet and Windy Mid-Camp
Rob Howard / 27.10.2007
By early afternoon the promised wet weather had arrived with persistent and heavy rain squalls sweeping across the hills, driven by increasingly strong winds. The lucky few C class and Short Score competitors who had fast times and early starts just about made it to camp before the rain set in, the first of them arriving shortly after 13.30.With the camp set in an enclosed flat bottomed valley, runners came down into it from 3 directions, all of them steep descents, with most crossing Steygail Hill. By late afternoon its steep grassy slopes had competitors dotted all over them, some of them giving up the struggle to stay on their feet, and bum-sliding down as much as they could!
Among the early finishers were the day one C class winners Tim and Martin Stephen, a very successful pairing already in many other mountain marathons, despite the fact Tim is only 16. (They are entered in the Parent and Offspring class.) Their time of 4 hours 27 minutes gave them the narrowest of leads for day two, but the top five teams are within 7 minutes of each other. “It’s very close,� said Martin, “so tomorrow is going to be even faster and we’ll have to give it all we have, and keep looking over our shoulders.�
He is hoping for a good result as the pair have never done well on this race, having competed in the score classes in the past few years. They obviously found the linear C class more to their liking and were impressed with the course. “There was quite a bit of route choice on the course, though no technical controls, and we had to some compass work in the mist. It was a tough finish too as the biggest climb descent came right at the end.�See All Event Posts
